abqtommy
abqtommy's JournalBBC: Africa's week in pictures: 1-7 April 2022
A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61021573
I always enjoy this weekly Shout Out To Africa.
A reminder of the U.S. Lend-Lease program and Declarations Of War in 1941 and 1942.
Lend-Lease:
[The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (Pub.L. 77–11, H.R. 1776, 55 Stat. 31, enacted March 11, 1941), was a program under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom (and British Commonwealth), Free France, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
U.S. Declarations Of War:
December 8, 1941 with Japan
December 11, 1941 with Germany and Italy
June 3, 1942 with Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania
https://www.history.com/news/united-states-official-declarations-war
What this tells me is that the initial support by the U.S. for our Allies will result in our
being involved to the max. This is historical reality and it's playing out again here
in 2022. There are those of us who are capable of learning from history and those
who aren't. It's unfortunate that all of us will pay the price set by the slow learners.
Guardian: 'Learning to live with it'? From Covid to climate breakdown, it's the new way of failing.
The government is trying to wish away problems such as flooding by doing nothing. It’s incompetence by design.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/07/learning-live-covid-climate-breakdown-failing-government-flooding
[We have a new term for doing nothing: “learning to live with”. Learning to live with Covid means abandoning testing, isolation and wearing masks in public places. Living with it, dying from it, what’s the difference? The same applies to climate breakdown. It’s not just that countries like the UK have failed to play their part in preventing this catastrophe. They have also failed to prepare for it.
While our primary effort should still be to decarbonise our economies, to prevent even worse impacts, we also need to brace ourselves for the heating that’s now unavoidable. But, as the government’s climate change committee points out, adaptation in the UK is “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”. The head of the committee has spoken of a “wilful reluctance” to include adaptation in policymaking.
In the five years since the committee last reported on this issue, for example, 570,000 new homes have been built without heat adaptation: in other words, as temperatures rise they’re likely to overheat in the summer. Doubtless, many of them have also been built on flood plains. As always, it’s much cheaper and easier to prepare for such disasters than to seek to live with them. But government policy is to wish away these problems.
This government is incompetent by design. Doing nothing is what Tory donors pay for. Doing nothing is what the billionaire press demands. Doubtless we’ll soon be told we need to take “personal responsibility” for ensuring our homes are not flooded and our power lines are not destroyed by storms.]
There's much more text and photos at the link. While this article is focused on events
in The U.K. I find that I, as a citizen of The U.S., will never be content to "learn to live
with" Covid, Climate Catastrophe, Fascism, Corruption, or any refusal to accept
Human Rights. We can do better. We've got to.
BBC: Helmut Sonneberg: A spellbinder's story of survival, no longer kept secret.
This begins as a conversation with 90-year old sports fan Helmut "Sonny" Sonneberg.
"Sonny" has had many interesting and horrifying experiences in his life and he shares
them with us.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/60919445
big snip
[In February 1945, with the Allies advancing, Sonny was deported along with his mother to Theresienstadt, in what is now the Czech Republic. His stepfather could do no more. He himself had been forced to take up arms.
Theresienstadt was primarily a transit camp for Jews sent to their deaths further east.
"There were about 55,000 people in a space designed for 4,000," Sonny says.
"There was barley soup in the morning, at noon and in the evening. That was all we got to eat. Sometimes it was thick, sometimes thin, salty or sweet. There was one special ration every five days: 500g bread, 50g sugar, 50g butter. If I got that at 11, it was eaten by 12. So my mother gave me her ration too. (note: 454 grams equals one pound)
"People were starving to death but it was not an extermination camp. When we were liberated by the Red Army - in late May or early June, it was warm - trains arrived from Auschwitz. They were like cattle cars, all the doors open, with people in there. They were just skin and bones. Nothing more.]
This is yet another of many "This is what Nazis/Fascists do yet we can and do
survive." stories that I'm familiar with. Let's remember, never forget and celebrate
with "Sonny".
There's much more text and photos at the link. I have edited the text to meet our
4-paragraph rule.
Al Jazeera: Photos: Sudanese take to the streets in anti-coup protests...
...A protester was reportedly killed as security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas in Khartoum.
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/4/7/photos-sudanese-take-to-the-streets-in-anti-coup-protests
[Thousands of Sudanese marched in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities against the military coup last October that plunged the African country into political turmoil and aggravated its economic woes.
Wednesday’s protest was the latest in efforts to pressure the ruling generals, whose takeover has triggered near-daily street protests demanding civilian rule.
Called by pro-democracy groups, the demonstrators marched in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman amid tight security around the presidential palace, which has seen violent clashes in previous protests.
A medical group said security forces shot dead at least one person when they violently dispersed protesters.]
There's more text and many photos at the link.
Al Jazeera: Photos: Indigenous march in Brazil to demand land protection...
...Indigenous people gathered in Brasilia for a 10-day protest camp demanding better protection for their land and rights.
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/4/7/photos-indigenous-march-in-brazil-demands-land-protection
[Thousands of Indigenous people have marched in Brazil’s capital to press Congress not to pass legislation proposed by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government that would open their protected lands to commercial mining and agriculture.
According to the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), some 6,000 people from 176 different groups marched on Wednesday towards the National Congress in Brasilia as part of a 10-day annual protest demanding the protection of Indigenous land and rights.
Chanting and holding signs criticising Bolsonaro, participants called for more Indigenous representation in the parliament, where there are currently no Indigenous elected officials.
Indigenous leaders and their supporters say the government has failed to control illegal mining and deforestation on Indigenous reserves.]
There's a bit more text and many photos at the link.
Guardian Books: ['I didn't win the election': Trump admits defeat in session with historians.
The ex-president also said that Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/05/trump-admits-election-defeat-historians-zelizer-princeton
[Donald Trump has admitted he did not win the 2020 election.
“I didn’t win the election,” he said.
The admission came in a video interview with a panel of historians convened by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and editor of The Presidency of Donald Trump: A First Historical Assessment. The interview was published on Monday by the Atlantic*.
Describing his attempts to make South Korea pay more for US military assistance, Trump said Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, was among the “happiest” world leaders after the 2020 US election put Joe Biden in the White House.]
There's more text and photos at the link. This is interesting but TFG cultists won't see
this information and if they do they'll ignore it. Let's make sure that we don't ignore
them.
*The Atlantic offers free access with registration so I've chosen this Yahoo link
instead. It pretty much repeats what I found at The Guardian.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-lets-slip-didnt-win-175745630.html
BBC: Autism: 'I was diagnosed at 60... (April is Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month)
...The onset of the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on journalist Sue Nelson. Exhausted by covering the crisis, she received a life-changing diagnosis at 60 – she was autistic.'
[In January, while recovering from Covid, I received another diagnosis.
The symptoms first appeared during childhood. It's just that no one recognised them. There isn't the medical equivalent of a quick lateral flow test for the condition either. It requires expert assessment to combine behavioural puzzles – using pieces that appear to come from separate jigsaws – to create an unexpectedly new picture.
This explains why I wasn't diagnosed with a life-long developmental disability until the age of 60. Embarrassingly, a former BBC science correspondent missed her own breaking news.
I am autistic.]
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220405-the-life-changing-diagnosis-of-autism-in-later-life
This is a Long Read. There's much more text and photos at the link. I'm the father
of three sons and my youngest two are both diagnosed On The Spectrum. I'm very
aware of autism.
This is not what I wished for my children. I didn't wish them to lose their vision due to
Retinits Pigmentosa that affects many autistic persons. There was a time that I was
terrified my sons would self-harm due to this but things have worked out much better
than I expected and we all go on doing the best we can.
Concern Worldwide US: The 10 Largest Refugee Crises to Follow in 2022 (March 13, 2022)
The crises presented number from 10 (least critical) to 1 (most critical).
10. Eritrea 9. Central African Republic 8. Somalia 7. Sudan
6. Democratic Republic of Congo 5. Myanmar and The Rohingya Crisis
4. South Sudan 3. Afghanistan 2. Ukraine 1. Syria
https://www.concernusa.org/story/largest-refugee-crises/
Note 1: At the above link is a request to register for more information and another for
donations. I don't recommend either action but this is the best site I found with this
Refugee Information. Please note that the above crises involve 6 from ethnic Black African countries, 3 from ethnic Brown countries and 1 from a primarily ethnic White
country.
Note 2: When I read the following OP at DU concerning the support for refugees from
Ukraine I got to thinking about all this Refugee Business and that has motivated my
OP here.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216561439
Note 3: The Ukraine refugee crisis has revealed that ethnic bigotry still has a big
effect on refugees and host countries. See the following link:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/students-allege-racism-ukraine-cmd-intl/index.html
Can we do better? Yes. Will we? That remains to be determined.
I've done the best I can to get across my thoughts here. Let me know if you think
I've succeeded. Or not.
Good News Network: One hundred years ago on this day Doris Day* was born.
*Mary Anne Kappelhoff was her name at birth.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060403/
[A century ago today, Doris Day, a woman who seemingly had no limit on her talent, was born. As well as melting hearts with her beautiful voice that was equally at home on sultry or big band jazz, she was one of the biggest stars during the Golden Age of Cinema. Playing starring roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and The Thrill of it All, she received the Golden Globe and Grammy lifetime achievement awards, as well as the Medal of Freedom. As of 2020, she was one of eight record performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times.
A twenty year solo-career, spawned from a childhood listening to Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, and particularly Ella Fitzgerald on the radio, Day toured extensively around the country singing for Les Brown and his Band of Renown. Between 1947 and 1967 she recorded more than 650 songs. “The one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I’d sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words,” she said to biographer.
Her debut records, Sentimental Journey, and My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time both reached #1 on the pop charts. Her music career flanked her film career, and even while breaking into Hollywood’s elite, she continued to produce #1 records, like Secret Love in 1953. She remains one of the seminal performers of Que Sera, Sera.]
There's little more text at the above link but some photos and access to a music video.
I've enjoyed much of the music and movie roles she's provided us with.
See the Wikipedia link below for more information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day
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